This invention relates to a process for producing a silver halide photographic material. More particularly, the present invention relates to a process for producing a silver halide photographic material having improved sensitivity, keeping quality and developability.
The performance requirements of silver halide photographic materials (hereinafter sometimes referred to simply as "light-sensitive materials") have recently become versatile and ever stringent. A particularly strong need exists for the development of light-sensitive materials that have high sensitivity, that provide high image quality and that have good keeping quality.
Spectral sensitization with cyanine dyes is a well-known technique that has customarily been practiced to sensitize light-sensitive materials. Combinations of specific cyanine dyes either with themselves or with non-dye compounds are described in many prior patents including dye compounds are described in many prior patents including Examined Japanese Patent Publication Nos. 34535/1979 and 38936/1981 and Unexamined Published Japanese Patent Application No. 153826/1983.
These prior art techniques are capable of improving the spectral sensitivity of light-sensitive materials to some extent but on the other hand, they cause deleterious effects on development and fail to achieve desired improvement in practical sensitivity, or they reduce the contrast to cause deterioration of image quality. Further, they impair the raw stock stability of light-sensitive materials. Thus, further studies have been necessary to develop light-sensitive materials that have satisfactory levels of sensitivity and image quality.
The recent advances in the technology of rapid processing of light-sensitive materials have been remarkable and at the same time, photographic process control has become increasingly simplified. This is in order to save the labor and cost involved in maintenance and control of processing steps, and practices currently adopted to meet this need include low replenishment rate of processing solutions, extension of the term for which processing solutions are used without replenishment, and adopting the same conditions for processing light-sensitive materials that have previously been processed under different conditions.
In response to these practices for processing light-sensitive materials in a faster and simpler way, methods have been taken to reduce their dependency upon development and subsequent processing. For instance, Unexamined Published Japanese Patent Application No. 39928/1975 teaches the use of hydroquinones in light-sensitive materials, and Unexamined Published Japanese Patent Application No. 19739/1982 proposes the use of 1-phenyl-3-pyrazolidones instead of hydroquinones. Both of these techniques aim at reducing the processing dependency of light-sensitive materials by incorporating developing agents therein, so that they will be less subject to the adverse effects of variations in processing conditions.
However, if developing agents are incorporated in silver halide photographic emulsion layers or layers adjacent thereto, they will deteriorate the photographic characteristics of the light-sensitive materials during pre-exposure storage, causing a serious problem such as extensive fogging.